


the happiest i've ever been in my life

by snsk



Series: 30 min request thing [9]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 13:38:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8716000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snsk/pseuds/snsk
Summary: And he wasn’t trying to be dramatic, really he wasn’t. (for the anon who requested: Just please write some angsty bullcrap if youre still taking requests)





	

Sometimes he thought about it.

What he would do if Phil ever left.

This was what love meant: _I want to be with you for as long as you want me to be_. That was the good love. That was the kind that was healthy, and true.

And if _for as long_ was to end someday, the good, healthy thing to do would be to mourn the end of something that had shaped a big part of who he was today, and to move on, eventually. And rebuild.

Sometimes he thought about it.

If he would be able to.

If he _could._

Because there was something that nagged at him, when he considered a future without this.

That he could not imagine one.

And he wasn't trying to be dramatic, really he wasn’t. And it wasn’t something awful, something that plagued his mind constantly, and it didn’t mean he was - very sad, or he entertained thoughts about - well, no.

There was just something matter-of-fact about it. About how losing Phil would be like losing not so much a limb, but an essential organ. A kidney, say. Or a lung. The aorta, blockaded.

You could survive, but on artificial life support. This would not be the body you knew. What you once were, it would not be strong enough to support what you would be,

after.

There would be no _rebuilding._

This was probably extremely unhealthy. This he knew. He had read enough Thought Catalogue articles and Tumblr posts about the dangers of making your partner your everything.

It was too late for him, unfortunately.

But - not to be dramatic. He would survive, on a machine that provided him oxygen. He would survive, without the sleepiness of Phil’s smile in the morning, and how he stretched out to meet him.

This was what he thought about, when he thought about it:

that there would be nothing very much important,

after.

He would be Phil’s, for as long as Phil would have him, and then, if Phil ever decided that there was an expiration date for that, he would let him leave.

That was what a good, healthy, grown adult would do. That was what true, healthy love was.

He felt a kind of relief, thinking about it.

That he would be able to do that.

For Phil.

Then: a future he could not imagine. Certainly not one he wanted to.

Blankness, stretching on infinitely. The empty-frustration of a jammed laptop screen,

forever.

“Hey.”

Phil had come into the room without him realising. He stood over Dan, and carried a mug of steaming something in his hands.

Dan peered up at him from the foot of his bed. “Hi.” He tried to make his voice sound normal.

“This is for you,” Phil suggested, his own voice carefully neutral.

“I’m okay,” Dan told him.

Phil said, “Yes.”

He settled his weight onto the bed beside Dan, and reached out slowly, to touch. As if Dan was a skittish animal.

Dan did not move, and let Phil’s fingers move through his hair. He imagined them re-arranging everything inside Dan with the familiar, repeated gesture.

He could breathe again, a bit, enough. His aorta, smooth and unclogged, freshly dilated.

He could not tell Phil this. He would not. Phil would think he could _never_ leave, even if he - one day, he wanted to.

Dan didn’t think he would leave. Not really. No.

But there was always something at the back of his brain that niggled at him. When he thought about what he would do.

_He could not make Phil stay._

He hung on to that. There was an empty, magnificent relief in that. That however frightening and inexhaustible all the vortexes inside him were, that he _could_ not drag Phil down with him, if Phil ever decided he had had enough, if Phil ever decided he was drained of all ability to confront the whirling masses that made up the shape of the boy in front of him.

This was what pure, true love meant, and-

Again!

Sorry.

God, how annoying.

No wonder hypothetical Phil wanted to hypothetically leave.

When he thought about it, his thoughts ran around in circles. A dog chasing its tail endlessly. He did not quite know how to make himself stop. He did not know if there was any reason for running, just that the tail meant, maybe, the answer.

There would be no answers,

after.

And that was, in the end, the answer in itself.

He vaguely wanted the collar put on him. It would be nice for everything to be very quiet. It got so loud, the times he thought about it.

“Shh,” Phil hushed, very soothingly.

Dan refocused on him, wondering, then watched his own hand, its fingers, saw that they were slightly trembling.

“Sorry,” he said.

“No,” Phil said, nonsensically. He was still petting at Dan’s hair, still soothing the vast and terrible maelstroms with just the pads of his fingers.

Dan reached up. He closed his hand around that touch that could work miracles. He made a fist around it.

It made sense that Phil’s skin was cool. He had, after all, been fighting bottomless non-matter. But it had been just a moment ago that he had been offering Dan hot, sweet tea. Hadn’t it?

God, what a mess.

Dan ordered him, “Promise me.”

“Promise you?” Phil said. “Promise you what?”

Phil’s eyes, when they were tired, were very deep, and very sweet, and very familiar. The texture and colour of this invisible and essential organ. Cut Dan open from the inside, and he fancied he would bleed this exact hue, because sometimes, it was all that he knew.

“That you’ll run,” Dan said. “That you’ll run from the scary vortex.”

It was imperative Phil knew. That Dan _could_. That this was the good love. The kind that was healthy, and true. That _for as long as you'll have me_ meant: exactly that.

“Dan?” Phil asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dan said. Phil’s hand was warming up again, in his grip. That was good, too. “Please?”

And because Phil trusted him, he said: “I promise, Dan.”

Dan took in a long breath, finally, finally. Relief. There it was. Phil quietly assessed him, gaze tracking him as he breathed. He reached over to the bedside table, and offered Dan his drink, lukewarm. He made Dan sit up, and he put cautious arms around his waist, and he leaned against him, forehead against the nape of Dan’s neck, like _Dan_ was the solid one here.

Sometimes Dan thought about it, about

after.

What he would do if Phil ever left.

Perhaps, if Dan was really, very lucky, and blew all his candles out and made a wish on every shooting star and sent a silent prayer to every deity imaginable...

But Phil exhaled, a bit tiredly, so lovingly, against his back. They both continued breathing.

 

* * *

 

read on [tumblr](http://snsknene.tumblr.com/post/153902586593/just-please-write-some-angsty-bullcrap-if-youre)


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